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‘As his close friend Ivan Sollertinsky remarked, Shostakovich was ‘perhaps the first among Russian composers to make his heroes speak not in conventional arias and cantilenas but in living language, setting everyday speech to music’.’

‘This is what electronic music sounded like in the 1960s. Just when the listener thinks he has Vasks's number, however, Vasks writes a beautiful cantilena for the soloist, and the concerto takes on a new dimension.’